BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in Stockton

Update: Friday, June 20, 2025 PM

I’m torn. Tonight was not a good experience with food. But it ended well because the manager on duty, James, saved the day. He was more than gracious and took care of the issue. We started with the pretzel appetizer. That was actually pretty good. It was served fresh and hot and came with a good cheese dipping sauce. My son ordered fish and chips and one of their several house-made sodas and was happy with his decision. He enjoyed his fish. I ordered the prime rib medium with mashed potatoes, clam chowder and a wedge salad. The clam chowder was just OK. It’s a little different than I am used to. The wedge salad was excellent. Mashed potatoes were good. Now we come to the nitty-gritty…the prime rib. I don’t really know how to describe the prime rib. It had no flavor, no spices. It wasn’t tender. It was almost like they rinse the meat off with water before they heated it. Not good. I sent the prime rib back and ordered the fish and chips, which never appeared until we were getting up to leave so they boxed it to go. The only thing that saved the evening was how manager James handled the whole situation. He went above and beyond to make sure that we left happy. Thank you James! We will be back but most likely I will not be ordering prime rib again. I posted a photo of what they advertise for prime rib and what I actually received. Quite an interesting comparison. I hope you can find the photo! ———————— Update: July 26, 2023 PM We went here tonight because my son likes the root beer. A lot of restaurants, including BJ’s, are struggling to regain their pre-pandemic status and dominance in the restaurant market. BJ’s used to be great, had a big menu, always busy, decent food. Nothing memorable but not bad for a late night outing since they were open till 1 AM. Tonight was not memorable either. I had the prime rib dip. My son had the fish and chips. he let me taste the fish. They were not cooked fresh. The batter was soggy. I think they would’ve been OK if they were cooked fresh. My tiny prime rib sandwich was not worth the price. If it wasn’t for the pretzel appetizer that we ordered I probably would’ve went home hungry. That’s not good. We won’t be ordering the pretzel appetizer again. That was a solid mass…nothing close to pretzel consistency. It came with a good cheese dip. The cheese dip was so good I asked for another side to dip my french fries in. Speaking of french fries… I specifically asked our server that I wanted my fries to be hot and fresh. Guess what, they were not. They were warm and soggy. Nothing memorable about tonight. I see no reason to return. Our server was great. She did a good job. Speaking of their menu, it’s a lot smaller than it used to be. They used to have deep-fried artichoke hearts which were good and we would’ve ordered them tonight but nope, they don’t have them anymore. The bathrooms were very clean and...

Came for my birthday and it was honestly the worst experience I've ever had.

We arrived around 2:55, were told there would be a 40-50min wait. No problem. We love the food and decided to wait. An hour went by until they finally went to seat us. A whole 20mins went by until someone noticed we had not been helped yet. Instead of helping us himself, the waiter told us he'd get someone to help right away. Another 5mins went by until someone came to take our order. We decided to put our entire order in as we were starving and very thirsty. Mind you, there were five different waiters AND the manager walking by our table and helping a table next to us. Man. We were all just ready to leave. But decided to wait it out. 10mins went by and our drinks were finally brought to the table. Waiter noticed our appetizer wasn't out and ran to get it. He apologized for the wait as he had to run the food as well, clearly no communication as he wasn't aware of the fact. Food finally came out 33mins after our drinks. And the orders were wrong. Brother ate his food even though it was a completely different order. And mine got taken back as it had items I was allergic to. Everyone else finished their food and mine was still not out. When it finally came out we decided to just ask for our birthday pizookie as it would take forever to come out anyway. The food came out wrong AGAIN but I was so hungry I decided not to say anything. Just. Completely. Terrible. We wanted to just pay and leave. Honestly we could have walked out and they wouldn't have noticed.

The slap in the face was when a table was seated behind us and the waiter rushed to give them waters, as the wait time was long, and take their orders until someone else could help them.

We left at 5:30pm. Couldn't do any of the other activities we wanted to for our birthday as they were closing. Absolutely...

11/13/2022: Came in to watch football. Sitting at the bar, our bartender/server, Stephanie, was excellent. She was very friendly and attentive, always with a smile. Due to a shift change, we had Ashia as our next bartender/ server. Again, very friendly and attentive. We enjoyed having both individuals as their customer service was excellent.

Hubby and I ordered some apps as we watched the games throughout the afternoon. We had the ahi poke, traditional wings with lemon pepper, and chips with guac and salsa. All the apps were great! The wings were exceptionally good as they were super hot (temperature) on the inside with a crispy exterior.

When dinner rolled around, we shared the prime rib entree. The meat was medium rare, served with creamy horseradish and a tablespoon of au jus. We obviously had to ask for more au jus. The sides were steamed broccoli and rice pilaf. Most of the broccoli florets were rare as they did not have the bright green color of cooked broccoli. Though I like my broccoli crunchy, I would have preferred them steamed and not raw. The rice pilaf was average. There were some crunchy, dried clumps mixed in, as if they scraped the side of the warmer tray. The entire dish needed more seasoning.

We ended the meal with a triple chocolate pizookie with vanilla ice cream. Always a satisfying and delicious treat!

Though the service, appetizers, and pizookie were great, I was quite disappointed in the entree. Had it not been for the tasty apps, I would have given this visit a weaker score.

Previous visit: Service/Server was not as...